A little magic to help us through?

I’ve always been a fan of magic. Not to the point where I wanted to become a magician but it picks my interest enough that I like movies and shows with magic in them. And not the lame rabbit-in-the-hat-type magic either. I like magic that is cool and exciting. I want to see some destruction or good versus evil battles filled with magic and powers. That sort of thing.

Being that this week is Magic Week — Oct. 25-31 — I thought it would be nice to profile how a few famous magicians might have been able to help us out with some of the current dealings and misdealings in our government. After all, the situation is dire enough that we might actually have to consider rounding up a slew of magicians to deal with boneheaded legislators.

The first thing that came to mind was Harry Potter. How would he fight the evil naysayers of healthcare reform? What spells would he use? Then I started to think, what kind of evil being do the opponents of health reform most resemble? It didn’t take long to realize they’re very close to being classified in the same family as a Dementor — a soul-sucking ghost-like figure that preys on positive feelings of humans. After all, when 44,000 people die each year and well over a majority of bankruptcies in the country come as a result of corporate publicly-traded insurance giants’ profit sheets, what’s a better term to describe somebody who obviously believes in this kind of insane status quo other than a soul-sucking Dementor?

Of course, after Potter has a close call with a Dementor, Remus Lupin teaches him the Patronus Charm, which easily drives away these reckless creatures by projecting a mass amount of positive emotions on the enemy. So maybe the way to go about healthcare reform is to conjure up a Patronus Charm.

The next biggest thing on my mind was the Michigan budget situation. How could a magician possibly solve this, and who would be right for the job?

It would have to be Criss Angel. Budget balancing is a technique that requires both sides of a politic spectrum to work together to create a perfect balance of taxes and services. This is the same concept as levitation, which requires a perfect balance of diamagnetism, or the ability for an object to create a magnetic field in opposition to an externally applied magnetic field (at least that’s how Wikipedia explained it). No one knows this ability better than Criss Angel. He once levitated above the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas. Balancing the budget shouldn’t be any kind of problem for him. Three trillion dollar deficit? Psssh, no problem. Let’s see Mike Bishop or Andy Dillon walk on water.

Everyone seems to have an opinion on Guantanamo Bay but nobody seems to know exactly what’s going to happen or what events will follow. Should we close it? Should we move it to Standish Max? Will terrorists attack? Who knows? Well I have a suggestion. Let’s bring the prison to Standish and create Gitmo North to help the city’s financial well-being, but instead of a bunch of humanly-soldiers, we get Gandalf from Lord of the Rings to guard the gates. After all, he did stop that Balrog creature on that bridge. You remember … “You … shall … not … passssss!!!” What terrorist stands a chance against that? I’ll tell you. None. Gandalf’s taken on armies and survived. Heck he even died and was sent back stronger.

On Oct. 13, a new Securities and Exchange Commissioner — COO Adam Storch, a 29-year-old former Goldman Sachs executive, was hired, raising eyebrows about the SEC’s ability and integrity to provide the oversight Wall Street needs. There’s an easy solution to this problem. Infamous magician Merlin once created a magical sword called Excalibur to help newly crowned King Arthur to protect the whole kingdom. Merlin also helped mentor Arthur, shaping him into the great king he became. Storch doesn’t exactly have to watch over a whole kingdom or anything, but he does have to watch over a whole sector that the country’s economic situation, unfortunately, has relied on. During this transition to a newly reformed Wall St., Merlin could help shape Storch into the Good Samaritan America desperately needs and make him some sort of powerful tool to help thwart greedy wrong-doing executives.

One of the most troublesome burdens for schools in the area is the MEAP test. Every year, area schools invest countless dollars in new programs and methods to improve MEAP scores. However, scores haven’t soared to the levels one would think for the amount of money spent. I think David Blaine and Harry Houdini would be the two magicians for this job. They are the two of the most renowned magicians of all-time. While they probably wouldn’t help so much education-wise, they could probably show the students a bunch of really cool tricks to help them cheat. Think of all the neat tricks they’d learn. They’d be able to smuggle entire laptops or answer sheets into the test with the help of some newly learned disappearing and hidden-object tricks. Probably less expensive the current method too.

Of course this is all in fun, but wouldn’t it be nice if we lived in a world of magic like this? All of our problems solved with a few legendary magicians. One can only dream. But I suppose that’s the beauty of Magic Week.

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